MEDIA ADVISORY: USDA administrator to speak Monday

Former Mississippi State faculty member Sonny Ramaswamy, now a senior U.S. Department of Agriculture administrator, will speak Monday [Feb. 11] on campus. He currently directs USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Open to all university faculty, staff and students, his presentation is titled "Setting the Table for a Hotter, Flatter, and More Crowded Earth." The program begins at 1 p.m. in the Bost Extension Center theater. A question-and-answer session will follow Ramaswamy's remarks.

While his address is not a public event, interested members of the news media are invited to attend. Persons planning to attend are requested to contact, Karen Brasher at 662-325-8530 or kbrasher@cfr.msstate.edu.

As an MSU faculty member, Ramaswamy held numerous positions in the entomology and plant pathology department. He went on to Kansas State University, where he led the entomology department. He had successive appointments as associate dean and director of agricultural research programs at Purdue University and dean of Oregon State University's College of Agricultural Sciences.

He is Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Entomological Society of America, as well as the Distinguished Graduate Alumnus of Rutgers University's Cook College.

At NIFA, he oversees a $1.2 billion dollar budget that includes competitive, formula and non-competitive grants and agreements. The institute is part of USDA's Research, Education and Economics Mission Area that includes the Agricultural and Economic research services, National Agricultural Statistics Service, and National Agriculture Library and National Arboretum.